What they said
by Mazken
Summary: His first psychiatrist labelled him as paranoid. She couldn't understand. She hadn't seen that man in the alley, his eyes dark with hate. She hadn't heard the malice in his voice, hadn't seen the hand clutching the gun behind his back. Alex saw it. Alex acted first. *please give it a go, I'm not sure how to write a summary for this without giving anything away or being misleading*


Please keep in mind that each new heading in **bold** is meant to be a new chapter, I just figured that if I posted 10 separate 200 word chapters it would just make it really annoying to read.

**What they said**

They said he was Broken.

But Alex wasn't broken.

Alex knew better.

**|Paranoid|**

His first psychiatrist labelled him as paranoid. She didn't understand.

_The wind howled whilst the rain fell in droves, forcing pedestrians into the normally untravelled alleyways. A boy with fair hair, hunched against the cold, darted inside the dark and narrow alley to escape the pouring rain. He glanced up at an almost imperceptible scraping of shoe against concrete and straightened, almost immediately regretting his decision to seek shelter. There, against the wall, his hair greying and unkempt, clothes ragged and worn and his hands hidden behind his body as he leaned against the wall._

_Alex made a decision._

_Not wanting to draw attention to himself, the youth continued along as if nothing was amiss, planning on getting out of the alley to the safety of the main street as quickly as possible._

_When the two figures were barely meters apart, the older looked up, showing eyes dark with hate, his mouth twisted in a sick facsimile of a smile. As he stepped away from the wall, he moved as if to clear a path for the younger through to the other side. Alex saw his hands tighten their hold on the gun behind his back, saw the manic gleam in eyes as his mouth opened and he started to speak in a low, guttural tone._

_Alex acted first._

Later they told him the man had been part of the local homeless population. That he spent his days begging on the streets for food. That he always had a smile on face and a kind word for the world weary.

A witness claimed the man had smiled at Alex before moving out of his way.

They never found a gun.

**|Ignorant|**

Ben had called him ignorant of the workings of the world after Alex had refused to attend a political forum on homeland security.

He had tried to explain to Alex the intricacies of democracy and how public opinion swayed the workings of Great Britain.

_'This is what we're fighting for, freedom! So we, along with every other person in this country, can have a say in our own future! We have a right to our own opinion, to have a say. Why can't you see how precious that is?'_

But Alex had assassinated too many civilians who'd stuck their heads out for slaughter by having a different opinion. He knew that Ben was the ignorant one.

So Alex just mutely smiled and nodded. Ben had eventually left, unsatisfied with Alex's world view.

**|Careless|**

Jones called him careless when he called in his partners death.

_The two men, clad in black, hunched outside the building exchanging hushed whispers,_

_"I'll go in first and neutralise any immediate threats. You follow," the older ordered._

_The younger rolled his eyes, irritated. He was the best shot by far and was the one with superior reflexes. His was the better success rate, with no failures against his name. He was the better agent. But the older refused to acknowledge any of that. "Fine." It wasn't worth the hassle. Besides, to have made it this far in the world of espionage he had to be at least somewhat competent._

_"Good. Now move."_

_With a muffled thump the door had been forced open and the older agent was inside. With a quick glance around the room he hurried into a hallway and started kicking open doors, leaving the younger man to glance around the living area, because that's what it was, seeing toys strewn across on the floor. Realising the possibility of an innocent child being involved he quickly rushed to the other agents back, to warn him of the risk._

_A childish scream, almost instantly silenced by a gunshot. A loud wailing started up. _

_Alex remembered the snow. His last trip to the Alps with Ian. He had been going down the slopes as fast as he could, racing against Ian and his new friend from his advanced snowboarding class when the other boy slipped and fell against Alex, sending him veering off course, swerving dangerously close to a tree. Ian had grabbed him at the last second and pulled him alongside until Alex regained his footing. When they reached the bottom Ian scolded Alex for being careless, for not watching his surroundings, both for the friend who had collided with him and the tree he had almost crashed into. Alex had long forgotten the discussion and the events leading up to it, but the lesson had stayed with him._

_'You were careless, Alex. Carelessness gets you killed.'_

_A gunshot rang out over the mothers sorrow._

_"I'm sorry. He was careless."_

_Alex left the house._

"You were careless Alex. I understand you're used to working alone but you should have had his back."

"I'm sorry Ms. Jones. It won't happen again."

No it wouldn't. Never again would Alex be so careless as to trust his partner on a mission.

**|Patriotic|**

Wolf had called him patriotic when he ran into K-Unit on a mission in Africa. Wolf said he was proud to have him registered as part of the unit.

_"Look Cub," Wolf started awkwardly, "we didn't start out on the right foot. I'm sorry," it was clear from Wolf's halting words and the nervousness in his gaze that he'd rather be anywhere other than where he was currently, but at the same time there was an air of determination about him._

_"But you've earned your place on this unit a dozen times over. We may not work together much, and I'm sure you still resent us for what happened in training, but I'd just like to say that I'm damn proud to have you registered as part of my unit."_

Alex scoffed. The unit put it, along with his silence and jaded gaze, down to Alex having not forgiven them yet.

That night a British agent was sent to assassinate a school-girl who had seen too much, and whose father happened to be a friend of the South African military leader. The agent never reached his target. Two days later he was found floating face-down in a river with a bullet between his eyes.

**|Lives in the past|**

Tom couldn't help Alex. He just couldn't be there for him. He couldn't understand.

_"Look, mate, things have changed. Life's different now and there's nothing you can do to change that. You need to stop living in the past."_

Tom said this over the phone, calling from New Zealand where he now lived with his mum and step-dad.

But Alex wasn't living in the past.

Tom had left him for a new life in New Zealand because he found it so easy to forget how his parents had argued, how'd they'd forget to talk to him for days on end because they'd be too busy screaming at each other. Alex never called Sabina in America because he had nothing to say to her. He had nothing to say to anyone. Eventually the time between Sabina's calls became so great that she didn't even realised that she'd stopped calling.

Ian was dead, had been murdered by a man who had been taught to kill by his own brother. Jack had been killed by a man wearing Alex's face and there was nothing he could do to bring her back. He had accepted that long ago. But it wasn't right not to cry for her, it wasn't right to each day forget her face just a little more until one day he'd wake up and realise he didn't remember what she looked like anymore.

Tom was wrong. He wasn't living in the past. He didn't pretend that everything was okay, that he could go home and Ian would be there and he'd be a banker, not a spy, and Tom would walk in behind him and suddenly proclaim he was staying over for the night and Jack would be in the kitchen cooking one of her 10 minute meals and yelling at Tom in mock-anger to call ahead next time.

He wasn't living in the past. He just didn't want to forget about back when he was happy.

**|The very best|**

_"You turned me into your tool! Your weapon!"_

_"Alex. It's true you've had to take lives before," Ms. Jones paused to unwrap a peppermint, "but you are the best at what you do. Countless lives have been saved by your actions alone. You're not a murderer," popping it into her mouth Ms. Jones regretted what Blunt had started. And even more she regretted that she couldn't justify stopping, not when she compared it to the results. _

One day Alex had broken into the records department and snuck a look at his own file. The section on those whose lives he had saved was seven pages long.

The section on those whose lives he had taken was a file all to itself.

When they first assigned him a psychiatrist she had told him to play to his strengths. For the first time ever, Alex listened.

**|Brave|**

Alex ran into K-Unit in Iran after infiltrating a guns trafficking operation, they, along with a few other units, were responsible for storming the storage warehouse and capturing those involved. Alex volunteered to be their guide around the inside.

Snake called him brave. Eagle joked that he was fearless. Wolf boasted about his fifth unit member to anybody that would listen.

But he didn't want these terrorists to be captured, free to hurt innocents, free to destroy what he had sacrificed his own life for. He wanted them dead.

He forged the Intel, made them believe they would take the compound by surprise. So when he led the units through the busiest parts of the compound no one suspected it was him.

Wolf didn't make it out. Neither did Otter, Mantis, Tiger or Hippo.

Some of the traffickers had hidden from the fighting and surrendered. On the inside Alex screamed.

**|Uncaring|**

_The sky was bright and clear, completely at odds to the atmosphere at Wolf's funeral. Ms. Jones had sent him there to mourn. Alex didn't understand why._

_Alex stood slightly apart from his unit, surrounded by solemn faced men. While Ben, Snake and Coyote, Ben's replacement, stood silently with tears running down their faces, Eagle was inconsolable, Wolf had been his roommate. Alex stood to the side, face blank, absent of all emotion. He wore the same face he had shown K-Unit every time they had worked together._

They accused him of not caring that Wolf was dead. They said that Wolf had accepted him into the unit, the least he could do was to feel something at his death, anything at all, other than his total indifference.

_'How can you just sit there acting like nothing's happened? Wolf's dead! Don't you feel anything?'_

_'He told us he was proud to have taken a bullet for you for gods sake! He thought you were one of us! Or don't you care about that at all?'_

But Alex did care. He cared that because Wolf and the other four SAS men had died, so had fifty-seven arms dealers, fifty-seven people who were responsible for the marked gang knife that had killed Lauren from his maths class, for the sniper that had shot at Tom, for the rifle that had killed Ian, for the bomb that had murdered Jack.

Alex was forcibly retired from what was left of K-Unit due to mental instability.

**|Self-expression|**

His fifth psychiatrist said he had difficulty expressing himself and that Alex should volunteer his opinion more often. He suggested that Alex should take up painting.

On the inside Alex was laughing.

The psychiatrist didn't understand how he expressed his rage through the intricacy of breaking bones, how depending on how the artist twisted and snapped the injury could range from being a clean break to a shattering of the bone and joint.

He expressed his satisfaction in the slowly growing pool of blood around the struggling form of a rapist with two broken arms and a knife wound to the stomach. His art was the perfection of a bullet right between the eyes, followed by one to the heart as a final flourish.

But she wouldn't understand.

So Alex just nodded. With a sigh the psychiatrist scribbled down on her pad, 'still struggles with self-expression'.

**|Unfeeling|**

They said the depression would leave, that happiness was still a possibility if he'd just open up and talk.

They said he felt numb because of all he had been through.

Alex knew they were wrong, he could still feel the burn of the water when he fully opened the tap labelled 'hot' as he did each morning when he showered. He could still feel the biting cold when he slept outside for days on end because the memories of Jack that opening his own front door brought up made him tremble and tears would drip down his face.

He wasn't numb. He could still feel the sharpness of the knife as he slid it across his skin.

**|Alive|**

They say he has so much to live for, his best friend Tom _'but he's in New Zealand and we haven't talked for over a year', _Sabina _'she said she'd help me, she said I could escape from MI6'_, his old SAS unit had enquired about him _'after kicking me out without so much as a word'_.

Jones said he could be anything he wanted now he was eighteen. They would get him the best tutors money could buy and forge his academic record to let him do anything he liked. She said life was full of opportunities, and if he'd _just stop cutting himself_ it would be easier for them to help him.

He sees the tears running down her face but can't understand why.

She says it's not too late to fix things, that he's still alive.

But Alex knows better.

On the inside he's dead

**Okay that's it!** Thanks for reading! Just in case I wasn't clear, below is a **summary** of the separate 'chapters' and what they meant for Alex:

Paranoid – Giving into his instincts

Ignorant – Losing faith in the system

Careless – Losing trust of others

Patriotic – Losing his faith in his superiors

Lives in the past – Lost his friends and loved ones

Brave – Showing his change in morals

Uncaring – Alex not fights not to protect the innocent but to punish the guilty

Self-expression – All that he cares for now is killing those who deserve death

Unfeeling – Alex is losing his hold on reality

Alive – Alex has lost the fight to live

Please send me a review or a PM telling me what you think, I'm experimenting with my writing at the moment and I'd like to get some feedback :)

Thanks for reading!

Mazken


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